My oldest children are 4 and almost three and they’re not in nursery or pre-school. We are thinking about home educating them so keeping them at home during the pre-school years seems the right thing for us. Here are my top 5 essentials for those early years:

Craft Items. Having a range of craft items to hand means that I can quickly set up an activity. We have a few staples such as plenty of paper and pens as well as foam shapes, stickers, sequins and pens.

Tuff Spot. A tuff spot is a really useful addition, and if you can afford the stand too then definitely invest in that. I use ours a lot and there are plenty of great tuff spot ideas over on my blog or Pinterest. My most popular tuff spot post is this about the three little pigs. Everything seems much more interesting when laid out on the tuff spot! We use ours for messy play, construction toys, play doh, making dens, pretty much anything you think of.

Library. Make use of your local library. Children love to read and learn so much from engaging with pictures books. We visit our local library at least once a fortnight and the children have great fun exploring the new books and choosing some to bring home with us.

Storage Boxes. It might seem a bit of an odd thing to add but storage boxes are a real must. We have a range of boxes ranging from old ice cream tubs to plastic boxes from Ikea. We use them to store all manner of things from bottle tops waiting to be turned into games or added to crafts to larger boxes for jigsaws and games. We rotate the toys etc that are out so having somewhere to store things is a real must (plus it helps me feel I have some sort of order!)

Construction Toys. Plenty of construction toys and materials. I find that the children just love to build and knock things down. The construction toys have been the one constants since they were around 18 months old. We have a range of mega blocks type stuff, wooden blocks and wooden train tracks. Open ended toys like this are great for developing their imagination and can keep them occupied for ages.

Wow, great list Sarah, thanks so much for sharing. I would also add a Twinkl account to my list of preschool home school must haves, do you home school your preschooler? what would you add to the list? Let me know below!